tuesday, february 12

it was still pretty snowy, so we got on the road and drove for a while before getting some breakfast. we figured ann arbor would offer up some decent breakfast options. i did remember eating at this weirdly awesome diner/korean restaurant years back and texted my friend who used to live there to find out where it was, but it just seemed like it was going to be hugely complicated to find it, so we just ended up at some weird breakfasty place downtown. they’d really gone all-out decorating for valentine’s day, it was full of teddy bears and hearts and flowers. our waitress, on the other hand, was downright unpleasant. anyway, we ate our breakfast and were reasonably happy about it, and got back on the road.

the weather grew worse and worse. luckily, the drive to lansing was only supposed to be about 2 hours. by the time we arrived, it was a full-on snowstorm, and the roads were pretty terrible, as they don't seem to care too much about things like plowing and/or salting the roads here. we checked into our hotel, which had this kinda weird layout of being built around the pool enclosure, which was kept super toasty-warm, so when you opened your room’s door, it was like stepping out into a tropical paradise. anyway, we got to spend some hot tub and pool time before heading off to the club, which was much appreciated.

lemme tell you, it is no fun unloading gear in a freezing, snowy parking lot. the night seemed pretty disorganized in that no-soundcheck and booking way too many bands kinda way, so it seemed pretty inevitable that we were gonna get fukked on our set time, despite the promoter’s reassurance that that wasn’t gonna happen. we figured, whatever, maybe 15 people were gonna show up anyway, it being lansing on a tuesday night in the middle of a snowstorm.

there was a nice bartender who told us not to eat at the diner next door, and pointed us in the direction of qdoba, which is a definite Awesome Find when it comes to tour food. after our yummy burritos, we were in much better spirits, and returned to the club, where, much to our surprise, the parking lot was full.

we hung out in the van for a while and “rehearsed” since we decided to switch up the set list a little bit, seeing as there was gonna be some audience crossover from the previous night. we got the new songs reasonably figured out, and then went inside, where it was indeed wayyy beyond our expectations, there was quite a crowd assembled! i hung out in the basement for a while since the club itself was grossly smoky (i am pretty spoiled about that now) but the basement was freezing cold, so it was really a no-win situation. except then i guess the not-freezing-but-smoky option eventually won out. so i hung out and talked to the bartender some more, she was a huge boston-phile, and when she found out i live in allston, she asked if i knew her friends, the toxic narcotic guys, which was hilarious because i totally used to live in the toxic narcotic house. (not at the same time as them or anything. it was a huge house in the heart of the student ghetto, and they had completely trashed the place, and got kicked out, and i was part of the generation who lived there afterwards, although the basement still had tons of flyers, apparently they had a lot of shows down there.)

what with all the other bands playing, it seemed we had a ton of time to kill, so the boys and i had a group effort at playing "erotic photo hunt" on one of those bar game machines. it really works well when you have 4 sets of eyes working on your team. we could have kept going forever, it seemed like, until we had to quit because it was time for us to go on.

the crowd was awesome, super-fun and dancey, and that really just does wonders for our energy level too, so it was fantastic. unfortunately, our concerns about our set getting cut short came true, so we had to leave out a bunch of songs at the end, which kinda sucks because that’s when all the really kick-ass songs are. it’s just frustrating when a club doesn’t know what they’re doing, like, if you want to have 5 bands, and your curfew is at 2, and you don't let the bands set up ahead of time, you should really just start the show earlier. i mean, DUH. it’s not rocket science. especially if you're a club and supposedly do this every day. anyway, i guess we can’t even really complain all that much, because everything else went so much better than we’d expected.

across the street from our hotel was a taco bell with a 24-hour drive-thru and the boys all ordered stuff but i decided that would be a Bad Idea, so I just had some of sean’s cinnamon twists. we ate our meal in the tropical paradise of the howard johnson’s lobby and then retired to our teeny rooms.